Flashman at the Charge fp-4

by George MacDonald Fraser

  "Our necks depend on this fellow," says one of the Cossacks doubtfully, and the sergeant sneered, and scowled at me.

  "My neck depends on what I've got in the cells already," growls he. "This offal is no more precious than my two birds. Be at peace; he shall join them in my most salubrious cell, from which even the lizards cannot escape. March him along!"

  They escorted me to a corner on the landward side of the fort, down an alley between the wooden buildings, and to a short flight of stone steps leading down to an iron-shod door. The sergeant hauled back the massive bolts, thrust back the creaking door, and then reached up, grabbing me by my wrist-chains.

  "In, tut!" he snarled, and yanked me headlong down into the cell. The door slammed, the bolts ground to, and I heard him guffawing brutally as their footsteps died away.

  I lay there trembling on the dirty floor, just about done with fatigue and fear. At least it was dim and cool in here. And then I heard someone speaking in the cell, and raised my head; at first I could make nothing out in the faint light that came from a single window high in one wall, and then I started with astonishment, for suspended flat in the air in the middle of the cell, spread-eagled as though in flight, was the figure of a man. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dimness I drew in a shuddering breath, for now I could see that he was cruelly hung between four chains, one to each limb from the top corners of the room. More astonishing still, beneath his racked body, which hung about three feet from the floor, was crouched another figure, supporting the hanging man on his back, presumably to take the appalling strain of the chains from his wrists and ankles. It was the crouching man who was speaking, and to my surprise, his words were in Persian.

  "It is a gift from God, brother," says he, speaking with difficulty. "A rather dirty gift, but human—if there is such a thing as a human Russian. At least, he is a prisoner, and if I speak politely to him I may persuade him to take my place for a while, and bear your intolerable body. I am too old for this, and you are heavier than Abu Hassan, the breaker of wind."

  The hanging man, whose head was away from me, tried to lift it to look. His voice, when he spoke, was hoarse with pain, but what he said was, unbelievably, a joke.

  "Let him … approach .. then … and I pray … to God … that he has … fewer fleas … than you … Also … you are … a most … uncomfortable … support … God help … the … woman … who shares … your bed."

  "Here is thanks," says the crouching man, panting under the weight. "I bear him as though I were the Djinn of the Seven Peaks, and he rails at me. You, nasrani,"*(*Christian.) he addressed me: "If you understand God's language, come and help me to support this ingrate, this sinner. And when you are tired, we shall sit in comfort against the wall, and gloat over him. Or I may squat on his chest, to teach him gratitude. Come, Ruski, are we not all God's creatures?"

  And even as he said it, his voice quavered, he staggered under the burden above him, and slumped forward unconscious on the floor.

  The hanging man gave a sudden cry of anguish as his body took the full stretch of the chains; he hung there moaning and panting until, without really thinking, I scrambled forward and came up beneath him, bearing his trunk across my stooped back. His face was hanging backward beside my own, working with pain.

  "God … thank you!" he gasped at last. "My limbs are on fire! But not for long—not for long—if God is kind." His voice came in a tortured whisper. "Who are you—a Ruski?"

  "No," says I, "an Englishman, a prisoner of the Russians."

  "You speak … our tongue … in God's name?"

  "Yes," says I, "Hold still, curse you, or you'll slip!"

  He groaned again: he was a devilish weight. And then: "Providence … works strangely," says he. "An angliski … here. Well, take heart, stranger … you may be . . more fortunate … than you know."

  I couldn't see that, not by any stretch, stuck in a lousy cell with some Asiatic nigger breaking my back. Indeed, I was regretting the impulse which had made me bear him up—who was he to me, after all, that I shouldn't let him dangle? But when you're in adversity it don't pay to antagonize your companions, at least until you know what's what, so I stayed unwillingly where I was, puffing and straining.

  "Who … are you?" says he.

  "Flashman. Colonel, British Army."

  "I am Yakub Beg, "36 whispers he, and even through his pain you could hear the pride in his voice. "Kush Begi, Khan of Khokand, and guardian of … the White Mosque. You are my … guest … sent to me … from heaven. Touch … on my knee … touch on my bosom … touch where you will."

  I recognized the formal greeting of the hill folk, which wasn't appropriate in the circumstances.

  "Can't touch anything but your arse at present," I told him, and I felt him shake—my God, he could even laugh, with the arms and legs being drawn out of him.

  "It is a … good answer," says he. "You talk … like a Tajik. We laugh … in adversity. Now I tell you … Englishman … when I go hence … you go too."

  I thought he was just babbling, of course. And then the other fellow, who had collapsed, groaned and sat up, and looked about him.

  "Ah, God, I was weak," says he. "Yakub, my son and brother, forgive me. I am as an old wife with dropsy; my knees are as water."

  Yakub Beg turned his face towards mine, and you must imagine his words punctuated by little gasps of pain.

  "That ancient creature who grovels on the floor is Izzat Kutebar, "37 says he. "A poor fellow of little substance and less wit, who raided one Ruski caravan too many and was taken, through his greed. So they made him "swim upon land', as I am swimming now, and he might have hung here till he rotted—and welcome—but I was foolish enough to think of rescue, and scouted too close to this fort of Shaitan. So they took me, and placed me in his chains, as the more important prisoner of the two—for he is dirt, this feeble old Kutebar. He swung a good sword once, they say—God, it must have been in Timur's time!"

  "By God!" cries Kutebar. "Did I lose Ak Mechet to the Ruskis? Was I whoring after the beauties of Bokhara when the beast Perovski massacred the men of Khokand with his grapeshot? No, by the pubic hairs of Rustum! I was swinging that good sword, laying the Muscovites in swathes along Syr Daria, while this fine fighting chief here was loafing in the bazaar with his darlings, saying 'Eyewallah, it is hot today; give me to drink, Miriam, and put a cool hand on my forehead.' Come out from under him, feringhee, and let him swing for his pains."

  "You see?" says Yakub Beg, craning his neck and trying to grin. "A dotard, flown with dreams. A badawi zhazhkayan*(*A wild babbler.) who talks as the wild sheep defecate, at random, everywhere. When you and I go hither, Flashman bahadur, we shall leave him, and even the Ruskis will take pity on such a dried-up husk, and employ him to clean their privies—those of the common soldiers, you understand, not the officers."

  If I hadn't served long in Afghanistan, and learned the speech and ways of the Central Asian tribes, I suppose I'd have imagined that I was in a cell with a couple of madmen. But I knew this trick that they have of reviling those they respect most, in banter, of their love of irony and formal imagery, which is strong in Pushtu and even stronger in Persian, the loveliest of all languages.

  "When you go hither!" scoffs Kutebar, climbing to his feet and peering at his friend. "When will that be? When Buzurg Khan remembers you? God forbid I should depend on the goodwill of such a one. Or when Sahib Khan comes blundering against this place as you and he did two years ago, and lost two thousand men? Eyah! Why should they risk their necks for you—or me? We are not gold; once we are buried, who will dig us up?"

  "My people will come," says Yakub Beg. "And she will not forget me."

  "Put no faith in women, and as much in the Chinese," says Kutebar cryptically. "Better if this stranger and I try to surprise the guard, and cut our way out."

  "And who will cut these chains?" says the other. "No, old one, put the foot of courage in the stirrup of patience. They will come, if not tonight, then tomorrow. Let us wai
t."

  "And while you're waiting," says I, "put the shoulder of friendship beneath the backside of helplessness. Lend a hand, man, before I break in two."

  Kutebar took my place again, exchanging insults with his friend, and I straightened up to take a look at Yakub Beg. He was a tall fellow, so far as I could judge, narrow waisted and big shouldered—for he was naked save for his loose pyjamy trousers—with great corded arm muscles. His wrists were horribly torn by his manacles, and while I sponged them with water from a chatti*(*Water jug.) in the corner I examined his face. It was one of your strong hill figureheads, lean and long jawed, but straight-nosed for once—he'd said he was a Tajik, which meant he was half-Persian. His head was shaved, Uzbek fashion, with a little scalp-lock to one side, and so was his face, except for a tuft of forked beard on his chin. A tough customer, by the look of him; one of those genial mountain scoundrels who'll tell you merry stories while he stabs you in the guts just for the fun of hearing his knife-hilt bells jingle.

  "You are an Englishman," says he, as I washed his wrists. "I knew one, once, long ago. At least I saw him, in Bokhara, the day they killed him. He was a man, that one—Khan Ali, with the fair beard. "Embrace the faith,' they said. "Why should I?' says he, 'since you have murdered my friend who forsook his church and became a Muslim. Ye have robbed; ye have killed; what do you want of me?' And they said, 'Blood'. Says he: "Then make an end.' And they killed him. I was only a youth, but I thought, when I go, if I am far from home, let me go like that one. He was a ghazi, *(*Champion.) that Khan Ali. "38

  "Much good it did him," growled Kutebar, underneath. "For that matter, much good Bokhara ever did anyone. They would sell us to the Ruskis for a handful of millet. May their goats' milk turn to urine and their girls all breed Russian bastards—which they will do, no doubt, with alarming facility."

  "You spoke of getting out of here," says I to Yakub Beg. "Is it possible? Will your friends attempt a rescue?"

  "He has no friends," says Kutebar. "Except me, and see the pass I am brought to, propping up his useless trunk."

  "They will come," says Yakub Beg, softly. He was pretty done, it seemed to me, with his eyes closed and his face ravaged with pain. "When the light fades, you two must leave me to hang—no, Izzat, it is an order. You and Flashman bahadur must rest, for when the Lady of the Great Horde comes over the wall the Ruskis will surely try to kill us before we can be rescued. You two must hold them, with your shoulders to the door."

  "If we leave you to hang you will surely die," says Kutebar, gloomily. "What will I say to her then?" And suddenly he burst into a torrent of swearing, slightly muffled by his bent position. "These Russian apes! These scum of Muscovy! God smite them to the nethermost pit! Can they not give a man a clean death, instead of racking him apart by inches? Is this their civilizing empire? Is this the honour of the soldiers of the White Tsar? May God the compassionate and merciful rend the bowels from their bodies and -"

  "Do you rest, old groaner," gasps Yakub, in obvious pain from the passionate heaving of his supporter. "Then you may rend them on your own account, and spare the All-wise the trouble. Lay them in swathes along Syr Daria—again."

  And in spite of Kutebar's protests, Yakub Beg was adamant. When the light began to fade he insisted that we support him no longer, but let him hang at full stretch in his chains. I don't know how he endured it, for his muscles creaked, and he bit his lip until the blood ran over his cheek, while Kutebar wept like a child. He was a burly, grizzled old fellow, stout enough for all his lined face and the grey hairs on his cropped head, but the tears fairly coursed over his leathery cheeks and beard, and he damned the Russians as only an Oriental can. Finally he kissed the hanging man on the forehead, and clasped his chained hand, and came over to sit by me against the wall.

  Now that I had a moment to think, I didn't know what to make of it all. My mind was in a whirl. When you have been tranquil for a while, as I had been at Starotorsk, and then dreadful things begin to happen to you, one after another, it all seems like a terrible nightmare; you have to force your mind to steady up and take it all in, and make yourself understand that it is happening. That flight through the snow with East and Valla—was it only four weeks ago? And since then I'd been harried half-way round the world, it seemed, from those freezing snowy steppes, across sea and desert, to this ghastly fort on the edge of nowhere, and here I was—Harry Flashman, rank of Colonel, 17th Lancers, aide-de-camp to Lord Raglan (God, this time last year I'd been playing pool in Piccadilly with little Willy)—here I was, in a cell with two Tajik-Persian bandits who talked a language39 I hadn't heard in almost fifteen years, and lived in another world that had nothing to do with Raglan or Willy or Piccadilly or Starotorsk or—oh, aye, it had plenty to do with the swine Ignatieff. But they were talking of rescue and escape, as though it were sure to come, and they chained in a stinking dungeon—I had to grip hard to realize it. It might mean—it just might—that when I had least right to expect it, there was a chance of freedom, of throwing off the horrible fear of the death that Ignatieff had promised me. Freedom, and flight, and perhaps, at the end of it, safety?

  I couldn't believe it. I'd seen the fort, and I'd seen the Russian host down on the shore. You'd need an army—and yet, these fellows were much the same as Afghans, and I knew their way of working. The sudden raid, the surprise attack, the mad hacking melee (I shuddered at the recollection), and then up and away before civilized troops have rubbed the sleep from their eyes. There were a thousand questions l wanted to ask Kutebar- but what was the use? They had probably just been talking to keep their spirits up. Nothing would happen; we were stuck, in the grip of the bear, and on that despairing conclusion I must have fallen asleep.

  And nothing did happen. Dawn came, and three Russians with it bearing a dish of nauseating porridge; they jeered at us and then withdrew. Yakub Beg was half-conscious, swinging in his fetters, and through that interminable day Kutebar and I took turns to prop him up. I was on the point, once or twice, of rebelling at the work, which didn't seem worth it for all the slight relief it gave his tortured joints, but one look at Kutebar's face made me think better of it. Yakub Beg was too weak to joke now, or say much at all, and Kutebar and I just crouched or lay in silence, until evening came. Yakub Beg somehow dragged himself back to sense then, just long enough to order Kutebar hoarsely to let him swing, so that we should save our strength. My back was aching with the strain, and in spite of my depression and fears I went off to sleep almost at once, with that stark figure spread horribly overhead in the fading light, and Kutebar weeping softly beside me.

  As so often happens, I dreamed of the last thing I'd seen before I went to sleep, only now it was I, not Yakub Beg, who was hanging in the chains, and someone (whom I knew to be my old enemy Rudi Starnberg) was painting my backside with boot blacking. My late father-in-law, old Morrison, was telling him to spread it thin, because it cost a thousand pounds a bottle, and Rudi said he had gallons of the stuff, and when it had all been applied they would get Narreeman, the Afghan dancing-girl, to ravish me and throw me out into the snow. Old Morrison said it was a capital idea, but he must go through my pockets first; his ugly, pouchy old face was leering down at me, and then slowly it changed into Narreeman's, painted and mask-like, and the dream became rather pleasant, for she was crawling all over me, and we were floating far, far up above the others, and I was roaring so lustfully that she put her long, slim fingers across my lips, cutting off my cries, and I tried to tear my face free as her grip grew tighter and tighter, strangling me, and I couldn't breathe; she was murmuring in my ear and her fingers were changing into a hairy paw—and suddenly I was awake, trembling and sweating, with Kutebar's hand clamped across my mouth, and his voice hissing me to silence.

  It was still night, and the cold in the cell was bitter. Yakub Beg was hanging like a corpse in his chains, but I knew he was awake, for in the dimness I could see his head raised, listening. There wasn't a sound except Kutebar's hoarse breathing, and then, from somewh
ere outside, very faint, came a distant sighing noise, like a sleepy night-bird, dying away into nothing. Kutebar stiffened, and Yakub Beg's chains clinked as he turned and whispered:

  "Bhistisawad!* (*Heavenly!) The sky-blue wolves are in the fold!"

  Kutebar rose and moved over beneath the window. I heard him draw in his breath, and then, between his teeth, he made that same strange, muffled whistle—it's the kind of soft, low noise you sometimes think you hear at night, but don't regard, because you imagine it is coming from inside your own head. The Khokandians can make it travel up to a mile, and enemies in between don't even notice it. We waited, and sure enough, it came again, and right on its heels the bang of a musket, shattering the night.

  There was a cry of alarm, another shot, and then a positive volley culminating in a thunderous roar of explosion, and the dim light from the window suddenly increased as with a lightning flash. And then a small war broke out, shots, and shrieks and Russian voices roaring, and above all the hideous din of yelling voices—the old Ghazi war-cry that had petrified me so often on the Kabul road.

  "They have come!" croaked Yakub Beg. "It is Ko Dali's daughter! Quick, Izzat—the door!"

  Kutebar was across the cell in a flash, roaring to me. We threw ourselves against the door, listening for the sounds of our guards.

  "They have blown in the main gate with barut,"* (*Gunpowder.) cries Yakub Beg weakly. "Listen—the firing is all on the other side! Oh, my darling! Eyah! Kutebar, is she not a queen among women, a najud?* (*A woman of intelligence and good shape.) Hold fast the door, for when the Ruskis guess why she has come they will -"

  Kutebar's shout of alarm cut him short. Above the tumult of shooting and yelling we heard a rush of feet, the bolts were rasping back, and a great weight heaved at the door on the other side. We strained against it, there was a roar in Russian, and then a concerted thrust from without. With our feet scrabbling for purchase on the rough floor we held them; they charged together and the door gave back, but we managed to heave it shut again, and then came the sound of a muffled shot, and a splinter flew from the door between our faces.